Saturday night I arrived in Banff. There was snow on the ground when we stopped in Canmore, and of course I was wearing wedges and a trench coat. I was slightly worried because I only packed summer clothes for the entire trip …
Thankfully I ran into Casie Stewart first thing on Sunday morning at the Banff World Media Festival. It’s awesome to run into familiar faces when you are away from home. She looked typical Casie GaGa with her sunnies on and an amazing vintage fur collared sweater, and her booties. So mountain chic. Then the three blogging babes who were finalists for the #BlogForBanff competition and got to chat and Casie & I met Corrie. We were of course, wishing Val Toronto Gal was with us to complete the photo.
I got to catch the keynote in the packed room with Paul Chard from MediaCom. His talk on branding in productions gave me some great ideas for Urban Native Girl TV (#UNGTV). I was so planning on impressing him when I was being raked by the judges at the Dealmakers Live competition (more on that later).
I had to spend a majority of my first day working on my series bible for #UNGTV. My entire team is in Banff and we had a meeting on Monday evening with APTN, our development network, so I needed to be in top form. After work was completed, I got to get out my hotel and break free to the opening CBC reception which was pretty epic.
The reception was packed, and the space is just beautiful, Banff Springs Fairmont is an absolutely incredible venue with gorgeous everything everywhere.
So I got to run into *the* Hollywood Indian at the reception, Mr. Adam Beach himself. There was a great synergy there and I’m excited to feature him in #UNGTV. Oh and here is some of my team. That’s Shane Belcourt, my director and co-creator for the show. And sandwiched in between us is Danielle from APTN. #NativeAwesome
While the party, was of course, a blast it was time to take in some of the sights of the place in which I was inhabiting. I love being near the mountains. My traditional territory, in the interior of BC, has gorgeous mountains and lakes as you head toward the coast. I miss them a lot while living in Toronto. The Rockies are sick. I want to come back and live at the Banff Springs Hotel, or at least have a writer’s retreat here. I haven’t felt like I was in a place this magical since last year at Lake Como.
Well I’ll be catching up with my Dia 2 for all of you internet lovelies later today. I’ve got to get ready so I can catch all of the #Banff2012 action today! If you want to follow live, you can check out my Tweets, or watch sessions live here - http://www.banffmediafestival.com/.
